The Beginning of Reality
by In Darkness Is Light
Summary: The original adventure kids begin Highschool.
1. Tai's Bad Day

DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN ANYTHING EXCEPT THE PLOT OF THIS STORY!

It was a cloudy, dreary day on that morning of September 7th.

14 year-old Tai Kamiya was in his room running frantically trying to find his school supplies. He had been awake for half an hour and already the day was looking pretty bad.

He had woken up half an hour late, the hot water in his house had decided to stop working so he had taken a freezing shower, his mom had run out of groceries and so his lunch was celery sticks and water, and now he couldn't find his school supplies.

After another 5 minutes of searching, he found them in a not-so-convenient place under a pile of soggy sandwiches.

Disgusted, he picked them up (the supplies, not the sandwiches), stuffed them into his knapsack and headed out the door.

He soon found out the elevator had decided to quit that morning too and so he ran down 20 flights of stairs until he reached the front gate. At the gate his friend and fellow classmate, Izzy, greeted him.

"Hey! Izzy!" Tai called out at his friend.

"Tai!" called back the boy, instantly recognizing the leader of the digi-destined. "How's it going?"

"Ugh…" Tai groaned, "This has been the morning from hell and it's the first day of high school so things aren't going to get better. At least they can't get any worse."

"Hey, never say never" Izzy warned.

"But I didn't say never" Tai pointed out.

"Never mind, it's a figure of speech" Izzy sighed exasperatedly.

Their walk to school continued in this manner, them discussing their summer break, even though more than half of it had been spent in each other's company. In fact, the digi-destined had spent a month and a week up at Matt's cottage in the country. He had inherited it after his grandmother died.

They were about halfway to school when Izzy mentioned something that caught Tai's interest.

"Hey, did you hear about Matt?" Izzy asked.

"Matt?" Tai gave a quizzical look, "What about him?"

"You didn't hear? He and Sora are going out." Izzy stated.

Tai's eyes widened in shock and disbelief, and his hands, which had been placed behind his head dropped to his side, making him lose his balance and fall backward into a puddle of muddy water, ruining his uniform coat and pants.

"Damnit!" Tai cursed, getting himself up.

"Are you mad because of Matt & Sora or because you ruined your uniform?"

Tai growled. "I'm mad because this day is going so badly! WHAT DID I EVER DO TO DESERVE THIS?!"

Just then Matt pulled up briskly in his black limo, spraying Tai with even more muddy water. He then rolled down his window, revealing his and Sora's faces.

"Hey guys- whoa Tai, what happened to you?" Matt asked.

"LIFE HAPPENED, YOU BAKA!" Tai yelled.

"Whoa, calm down there Tai. I was going to offer the both of you a ride to school but with that attitude, I've decided I'm only taking Izzy. Plus dude, you stink almost as bad as your attitude and you're wet and I don't want you to ruin the leather interior of my new limo."

"Don't want you to ruin the leather interior of my limo," mocked Tai rudely.

He definitely WAS NOT in the mood to be told off this morning.

"Well, I know that Izzy won't take that ride in your stupid limo because he's a true friend!" Tai yelled but upon looking around, he saw where Izzy really was; opening the door to Matt's limo.

"Izzy? You're leaving me?" asked Tai incredulously.

"Sorry Tai," Izzy replied apologetically, "but you're in quite a foul mood and I won't be the one who gets yelled at this morning. I can't stand your attitude today."

"FINE!" Tai yelled, "LEAVE ME! I'M BETTER OFF WITHOUT YOU!"

The three inside the limo rolled their eyes at his childish behaviour and Matt even said, "Tai, you're being stupid" before driving off, spraying Tai once more with the murky water.

Deep down inside, Tai knew they were right, he was being a jerk. After walking half way to school by himself, he realized he should probably apologize to them, even if right now he wanted to punch Matt's face in.

Without much incident, Tai arrived at the school 20 minutes late. He ran up to the office on the second floor where he apologized countless times for his tardiness and picked up his schedule.

'Great,' he thought, 'first day of school and the principal already hates me'.

He proceeded to his first class, which just happened to be History. After finding the classroom (rm. 219), he was made to apologize to the class for his tardiness while introducing himself. Luckily, he found someone he knew in the class: Mimi.

Taking a seat beside her, he greeted her. "Hey Mimi".

"Oh, hey Tai. What's wrong? You seem in a foul mood and you definitely smell foul P-ew!" she said, wrinkling her nose in disgust.

Tai sighed deeply. "Long story. In short? I'm having a really bad morning. I've already spazzed on Izzy and Matt and I'm pretty sure Sora hates me."

"Oh, don't be ridiculous! You're her best friend! She doesn't hate you! And I'm sure things with the boys will clear up just fine once you apologize." Mimi assured the miserable boy.

"Thanks Mimi, you always know how to cheer someone up." Tai smiled at his friend, feeling happy for the first time this morning.

She smiled back at him, glad that she could be of help. Just then the teacher cleared his throat, drawing their attention back to him and the class they were supposed to be paying attention to.

"Ahem!" their teacher Mr.Yusaka cleared his throat, obviously peeved at the fact they weren't paying attention in class.

Tai grinned back at him sheepishly before turning away from Mimi and facing the front of his desk. The teacher gave him a warning look before continuing on with explaining about the school and welcoming the new students.

Looking down at his schedule, Tai saw that his first day wasn't going to be that bad. He only had to stay 15 minutes in each of his 8 classes and then at 12:30, lunch time, they'd be released outside for a barbeque with the rest of the grade nines.

His other classes were in this order; History, Math, Gym, Science, Japanese, Computers, English and Music.

And if it had been a regular day one, they would have been; History, Math, Gym, Lunch and then English and Music.

The rest of the classes passed without much incident and he was pleased to find that in each of his classes, he had one of the digi-destined.

In History he had Mimi, in Math he had Sora, in Gym he had Matt and then in English he had Sora again. Music was another class with Mimi, and Japanese was with all of them minus Joe. Computers and Science were the only classes he had with Izzy, and he breathed a sigh of relief, knowing that he would be with someone who could help him pass the courses.

Even though he saw all of his friends, again with the exception of Joe who was attending a private school, no one but Mimi had talked to him the whole day and while he felt a bit bitter towards them, he knew that he had to apologize at lunch for the way he had acted earlier this morning.

Tai had learned that there were some things more important than pride, and his friends were definitely one of them. Taking his anger and shoving it down his throat, he found them at the lunch, all conversing with one another. Mimi greeted him cheerfully yet nervously, while the others just glared. He sighed and sat down at their table. Looking at Matt in the eye, he began.

"Look guys, I'm really sorry about this morning. I just- well I was having a really bad start to the day and then Izzy sprung some unpleasant news on me, and I got my uniform all wet and I acted like a real jerk and now my friends won't talk to me."

"OK," Matt spoke up, "We forgive you. Besides, I think the day has punished you enough already." He ended with a smirk across his face.

"Yeah," Tai chuckled lightly, "I'd definitely say it did." And returned the smirk to his friend.

They smiled at each other in silent agreement of the end of the day's battle, and gave each other "props".

Not too eager to meet more students, the 5 of them just stayed at their table conversing with each other, glad that the fighting was over.

When it came time to go home, Tai was surprised to find Kari waiting for him at the school gate with her bike, and his.

"Hey sis," he greeted her warmly, smiling at her and ruffling her short brown hair. "What brings you here?"

"Well, I heard about your day and thought you might need a pick-me up so I brought your bike and a soccer ball. I thought you might want to practice with me a bit." Kari smiled up at her older brother.

Tai smiled at her then began to look hesitant.

As if reading his thoughts, Kari added cheerfully "I also brought you a change of clothes"

"Aw man, you're the best!" he grinned at her, taking his bike and helmet from her, and beginning their journey to the soccer field near their apartment.

"So how was your first day?" Kari asked.

"Can't complain much, but it could have been better" Then a thought struck him. "Hey Kari, how'd you manage to get both of our bikes here by yourself?"

"I wasn't by myself," she said, blinking at her brother, "I was with TK. He helped me."

"Oh, he's a nice boy," Tai said slyly, "Do you like him?"

"Tai!" Kari yelled, a faint blush reaching her cheeks, embarrassed by her brother.

At this, his grin only widened knowingly. "You DO like him, don't you?!" he continued teasing her.

Rolling her eyes in response, Kari began to pedal faster and pretended to ignore her brother.

A few minutes later the two of them reached the soccer field and had a one on one game. Tai was amazed at how good she'd gotten. Some of the moves she knew, he didn't remember teaching her.

"Hey Kari!" he called her, "Where'd you learn to play like this?"

"Well," she replied thoughtfully, "Most of what I learned is from you, but," she turned around, getting the ball from him, "I learned a bit from Davis too."

"Davis huh?" Tai began slyly once more.

Kari immediately rolled her eyes at her brother, knowing what he was going to say.

"Do you like HIM?" Tai continued.

"He's an OK guy," Kari replied nonchalantly.

"Just ok? So do you like him or TK more?"

Kari just shook her head and laughed at him. "You're my older brother! I'm not supposed to even be talking with you about this stuff!"

"Fair enough," Tai raised his hands in defeat, "but," he said picking up the soccer ball with his hands, "When you do go out with a guy, don't expect me to be so nice as I am now. I'm your older brother! I have to protect you and make sure those guys know what's coming for them if they hurt you!"

"Oh Tai!" Kari giggled lightly, getting up and hugging her brother, "don't prepare yourself too hard, ok?"

Laughing at her statement, Tai hugged his sister back. The two of them had tired themselves out and by the looks of it, the sun was looking pretty tired too. Getting on their bikes, they pedaled the short way home.

When they reached the inside of their apartment, Kari went to go take a shower while Tai opened the fridge, relieved to see that their mom had gone grocery shopping. Grabbing a coke, he walked over to his room and opened the door. Smiling, he realized that his mom had also cleaned his room.

After Kari had gotten out of the shower, he too went and took a shower, relieved when he felt the hot water hit his tired body. Turning, the water off, he grabbed a towel and dried himself off, pulling his pyjamas on. He shook his hair wildly like a dog, letting the water leave it, before it took on its natural messy shape.

He walked into the living room and watched two hours of his favourite show, CSI: Las Vegas. He and Kari enjoyed these kinds of crime shows and they watched them together on the couch, Kari snuggled up warmly to her brother, and Tai with a protective arm around his sister's shoulders.

Needless to say, the day ended well for Tai, but would the next be just as good?

Find out on the next chapter!


	2. Mimi's Surprise

Mimi's Surprise

Mimi woke up early as usual to the sound of birds chirping out her window. 'What a beautiful day', she thought. Getting out of bed, she walked to her closet and fished out her uniform, wrinkling her nose in disgust at the maroon color of it.

'What bad taste these schools have! I can't believe I have to wear this!' her mind complained.

Getting dressed, she turned on her computer and checked her emails. There were only a few, but they were all junk so she hit delete and headed over to the washroom. She did her daily morning rituals and headed to the kitchen, where her mother was waiting for her with breakfast.

She ate her cereal in silence, listening to the birds chirping outside. After she was finished, she put her bowl in the sink, grabbed her bag, and headed off to school. On her way, she saw Izzy walking and decided to join him.

"Hey Izzy!" she called out.

"Good Morning Mimi!" he replied and waited for her to catch up with him. "What's up?" he asked her once she was walking beside him.

"Oh, nothing. Just trying to fool myself into liking these stupid uniforms!" She said while motioning to the pleated skirt and blazer she had on.

"Oh, come on, they're not that bad. Hey, we have computers first thing today! Isn't that great?!" Izzy exclaimed.

"Computers? First thing in the morning? Today? That's so useless! I just checked my e-mail this morning!" Mimi sighed exasperatedly.

Sighing Izzy responded, "Mimi, we're not in computer class to check our e-mails!"

Looking at him with one eyebrow raised she responded, "You may not be" before walking ahead.

Izzy stood there shaking his head for a few moments in disbelief at the girl he was walking with. Yes, Mimi was a pretty girl and he had to admit, he did feel somewhat attracted to her, but she wasn't exactly the person he would match wits with. Noticing she had stopped and was waiting for him, he quickly sped up his pace to catch up with her.

He rest of the walk was mainly in silence, and when they reached the school, they both headed up to the third floor computer lab for class.

"Good morning class!" called out the sharp voice of their teacher, Mr. Fukushima.

"Good morning Mr. Fukushima!" called back the class.

"Now, I want you to take this course seriously! I am going to teach you some of the most important lessons you'll ever learn in your life! Forget everything else! Computers is the only thing that matters!" he told them. "Today, I'll start by handing out a project! You must build and program your own Lego robot, as well as make an advertising website for it! You will work in pairs! You may choose your pairs! Out on the table, you will find all the materials you need, that is all!"

Mimi, who had taken a seat next to Izzy, whispered in his ear, "Want to be my partner for the project?"

Izzy, too stunned to reply immediately, and slightly caught off guard by Mimi coming so close, blushed and barely managed to stutter out a response. "Uh, uh, y-yeah, su-sure."

She smiled at him. "Great! Thanks!"

Over his shoulder Izzy could see Tai looking desperate because now he didn't have a partner to work with. 'Oh well', Izzy thought, 'I'll worry about that later'.

As the class progressed, Izzy was surprised to see that Mimi knew a lot of what to do. She had drawn the design for the robot with some help from Izzy and had gotten all the parts they needed to program the robot. When the class had finished, Mimi and Izzy had almost finished building their robot. As soon as the bell had rung, they cleaned up quickly and waked out of the computer lab.

Izzy was just about to push open the door to the stairs, when he noticed that Mimi was walking straight ahead. Puzzled, he called out to her, "Hey Mimi! Aren't you eating lunch with us?"

Turning around to look at him, she replied, "Yeah, I am! Here, come with me! I want to see what activities this school has!" Obediently, Izzy followed her, and soon they found the bulletin board that listed all the school's clubs, activities, and teams. When Mimi saw them all, her jaw nearly dropped to the ground! There were so many things she could do and she wanted to participate in everything! In the end, she signed up for the Spring Play, the Fashion Show, the Volleyball team, Swim team, and Basketball team.

Looking to her right, she saw Izzy, his brow furrowing. Concerned she asked, "Hey, what's wrong? You look so angry"

"Huh?" He looked up, obviously woken from his trance. "Oh, nothing, there's so much to do, I don't know what to choose!" he smiled sheepishly at her.

Smiling back she replied, "Yeah, there's a lot. But here, I'll help you choose. Do you want to be on any teams?"

"Well, I would like to try out for some of the teams like Swim team, Chess team, and Mathletes" he replied.

"Ok, then sign up for those. How about clubs?"

"Computer club obviously, and yeah, I think that's it for now."

"Ok, see? We're getting somewhere!" she said smiling at him.

"Yeah, we are, thanks" he smiled back.

A few moments later, a girl bumped rudely into Mimi.

"Hey!" Mimi cried. "What was that for?"

"Oh sorry," the girl replied a little less than politely, "I didn't see you there"

"Oh, ok" Mimi replied. "Hey! Aren't you that girl in our computer class?"

The girl sneered at her unpleasantly before replying, "Yeah," she began angrily but lit up when she noticed Izzy was there. "Oh, hi Izzy! Yeah, sorry about that Mimi, I was just having a bad day! To answer your question, yeah, I am in your computer class! My name is Chizumi Haruka!"

Not noticing that the girl was lying through her teeth by acting nice Mimi replied, "Nice to meet you Chizumi! I hope we become good friends, and I'm sorry that you're having a bad day!"

Chizumi shook her head. "Oh no, it's fine! I just had some stupid argument with my friend this morning. I'll be fine! Say, do you guys want to eat lunch with me? I think my friend's still mad at me, and I don't want to face her just yet".

"Oh sure we will!" Mimi replied. "Isn't that right Izzy?" she asked turning to him.

Izzy, caught off guard for the second time today at Mimi being so close, blushed and answered, "Sure! But wait, what about the others?"

"Oh, like they're going to really notice us gone for one lunch hour! Having lunch with Chizumi is more important than hanging out with them today!" Mimi scolded him.

"Oh, Right. Yeah, I guess I see your point" he replied.

They followed Chizumi to a spot on the opposite side of their friends. Faking tears, Chizumi thanked them again for being so kind to her. She took note, rather disgustedly, that Izzy had only seemed to follow when Mimi had asked him too.

The three had lunch together and after saying their goodbyes, left for afternoon classes. Mimi had cooking and art while Izzy had PE and Geography.

Mimi was happy that her classes for the day hadn't been that hard or tiring. Last period was art, and so she got to work on touching up the design of the robot and starting on some fashion design sketches.

Pleased with the work she had accomplished by last period, she happily packed up and left for home.

On her way out, she met Sora who was just leaving from Math, across from her art room. "Hey Sora!" Mimi called to her friend.

"Hi Mimi!"

"How was your day?" Mimi asked her.

"Pretty good, where were you and Izzy at lunch today?"

"Oh, some girl in our Computer class got into a fight with her friend and so we decided to hang out with her"

"Oh, ok. Well, I have to go meet up with Matt, he's taking me to rehearsal before the concert."

"Have fun!" Mimi called after her friend.

Continuing on her walk home, she smiled and hummed to herself. Today had been a very good day, she concluded. Though that Chizumi girl seemed real bitchy at first, she had proven to be a really nice girl, and Mimi was sure that they'd become pretty good friends. Lost in thought about the day, Mimi barely realized that she had reached home. Rushing upstairs, she took off her uniform, took a shower, and changed into some house clothes, before turning on her computer and checking her e-mail. Disappointed and a bit peeved, she noted that most of them were still junk mail. Happily though, she noted that she had received one from Matt, Izzy, and one from an unknown address.

Opening up the one from Matt, she read, 'Concert today at 9:30, don't be late!'

"Matt, blunt and to the point as always!" she thought, but said out loud.

Next she opened the email from Izzy.

It read, 'did you finish the robot design drawings? If you did, come to the computer lab tomorrow morning before class starts, and we'll scan them. I started designing the website, and it already looks pretty cool! I was hoping to do the more technical stuff so that you could focus more on building the robot during class. I know that we aren't supposed to do this project at home, but this'll be our little secret, ok? ;) Are you going to Matt's concert tonight? If so, I'll see you there!'

Smiling, Mimi shook her head. Doing a school project at home, that was Izzy's idea of mischief. But she had to admit; it was a pretty brave thing of him to do, well, for him. She'd actually liked working on this project with him so far, and was pleased to know that she'd not only have fun working with him, she'd get good grades too!

Finally, she opened the email from the unknown sender. She checked the email and saw, (cherryblossoms.x.o. 'Hmm, I wonder who this is…' she thought.

Getting down to the body of the message she read, 'Stay away from Izzy, or else. You'll do what I say if you know what's good for you, dumb bitch.'

She raised her eyebrows at the message. A threat? From someone who had a crush on Izzy? This was way too weird for her. She racked her brain for any evidence of who it might be, but no one really seemed to stick out in her mind. This was beyond strange. But whoever it was, she assumed that they were in her computer class, because who else had seen her work with Izzy?

Then again, she thought, they did eat lunch together with the rest of the digidestined every day. Uggh, this was much too confusing right now. She didn't really want to tell the others unless absolutely necessary, but she decided that she might ask Izzy if he knew anyone that had a crush on him. Or maybe he could tell her how to find out who they were just by their email. While trying to figure out who the sender was, she looked up at the clock on her wall, which read 7:30.

'Oh crap!' she thought, 'I have to get going!' And after quickly changing, she bolted out the door, oblivious to the computer screen turning black, and a little red pacman popping up, with a bomb in his hand.


End file.
